Interesting Flickr Photos

Archive for September, 2005

The first article talks about the B-school rankings released by Outlook. It talks about the surprising omissions from the list, the weird methodologies employed by Outlook to compile the rankings , permanent faculty vs. visiting faculty, etc. There are some very interesting observations like this one:

it is important to understand the difference between a B school and a Management Institute. A management institute imparts business education, but also seeks to add onto the body of knowledge that exists in the subject as a whole. A b school on the other hand has a single point objective: teaching the subject of business management.

The trouble with the surveys is that it lumps both categories together.Not all b schools seek to be management institutes – they simply wish to churn out competent graduates. And these graduates join the B school in quest of enhanced job prospects ie placements.

The article then goes on to talk about the ‘quick fixes’ applied by the B-schools to improve their rankings, not just in India but even in the US. IMHO, rankings are given undue importance. Things like ‘reputation’ are given a lot of importance in rankings which although important in B-schools, it is not so important in other fields of education. Fergusson College is ranked in the top 10 colleges in the country for Arts and also Science (IIRC)! As a son of a lecturer in Fergusson college and as a past student of the college, I can offer two conclusions – either the rankings are utter crap OR the education scenario in India is dismal beyond imagination.

The second article deals with jobs for engineering graduates in IT companies. It definitely doesn’t paint a bright and rosy picture about life as software engineers. It gives more evidence about the sad life in big IT companies and strengthens my resolve of not working in a IT biggie (atleast for now).

Some guy in the IT industry sums up the work in the following words :

There is not much of a ladder is S/W industry as such. For most life is quite typical. One or two years in a company. Then a chance to go onsite and see some money. Then back home. Another 2 years and then one becomes an analyst and after 5-6 years, a manager. And your engineering branch is the last thing that would matter here. The work in S/w company is quite mundane and does not involve too much programming skills. If you have good talking skills and project yourself well to your managers, you would grow.